Seven wins a good night of TV

The Glenn Dyer breakdown: A close night, won by Seven. It was one of the better Sunday nights of the year for TV viewing: news, current affairs (of a sort), soap, sport, drama, crime, all were available to viewers. The top five programs nationally all had more than 2 million viewers, while the top five in regional markets all had more than 600,000 viewers.

In the metro markets Nine was strong in Sydney, and weak in Perth and Adelaide and not so strong in regional markets, although The Block finally really clicked. The Block averaged a very high 1.916 million viewers in the five metro markets and 2.713 million nationally.

Sporting Nation averaged 689,000 at 7.30pm for ABC 1 and 998,000 nationally, deserved more and proved that we liked to watch sport, but are resistant to examining why we watch and what we really think about sport.

Tonight: Hours of ABC News and current affairs from 7pm. Australian Story at 8pm could be the highlight, along with Four Corners on Gina Rinehart. Seven has Revenge at 8.30pm, after The Amazing Race Australia. This is either a clever ratings ploy by Seven to move a program whose ratings have been easing at 9.30pm on Wednesdays into the tougher 7.30pm slot on Monday. Nine has the weak Tricky Business at 8pm, which will be up against the last half of The Amazing Race Australia and MasterChef. And it’s time to start sleeping on the couch: Wimbeldon starts tonight on 7TWO (8.30pm) and Seven’s main channel from 10.30pm.

Last week: Nine won nationally, the metro markets and regionally. In the metro markets Nine won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, while Seven won in Adelaide and Perth. 7TWO won the digitals in the metro markets, from 7mate and GO. WIN/NBN won the regionals for Nine from Prime/7Qld. 7TWO won the digitals in regional markets. The final national figures for the week (before the seven day record and watch data to be released this week) shows that the winner of The Voice last Monday night increased its audience to 4.356 million people, from the 4.201 million first reported last Tuesday night. And the The Voice grand final (the bit leading up to the announcement) lifted its audience to 3.702 million from 3.579 million.

In pay TV an AFL match provided the biggest audience of the week: the thriller between Collingwood and West Coast which was watched by 355,000 people on Fox Footy. The NRL games on Fox Sports — Many v Melbourne from last Monday (345,000) and Penrith v Parramatta (325,000) — were second and third. Saturday afternoon’s third rugby union Test between Australia and Wales averaged 212,000 on Nine’s main channels on 142,000 on Fox Sports. Traditional Sydney Rugby fans may have loved the 3pm kick off on Saturday, TV viewers didn’t and the audience was around half the size for the first and second tests which were played at night.

The top 10 national programs (metro & regional combined):

The Block (Nine) — 2.713 million
60 Minutes (Nine) — 2.204 million
Nine News — 2.198 million
Seven News — 2.129 million
Downton Abbey (Seven) — 2.113 million
Bill Connolly’s Route 66 (Seven) — 1.896 million
MasterChef (Ten) — 1.817 million
Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.793 million
The Mentalist (Nine) — 1.301 million
ABC News — 1.171 million

The Metro Winners:

The Block (Nine) (6.30pm) –1.916 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.559 million
60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.541 million
Downton Abbey (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.477 million
Seven News — 1.431 million
MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.375 million
Billy Connolly’s Route 66 (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.231 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.199 million

The Losers: Last Man Standing on Ten at 6.30pm, 491,000. Time to go, I think.

Metro News & CA: Nine News has big wins in Sydney and Melbourne and nationally that Seven’s wins in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth could not offset. Nine’s margins in Sydney and Melbourne were more than 170,000 viewers in each market!

Nine News (6pm) — 1.559 million
Downton Abbey (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.477 million
Seven News — 1.431 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.199 million
Ten News (5pm) — 597,000
The Project (Ten) (6pm) — 429,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 187,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm) — 147,000

In the morning:

Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 380,000
Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 368,000
Landline (ABC) (Noon) — 239,000
Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 177,000 (+51,000)*
Offsiders (ABC) (10.30pm) — 161,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 142,000
Insider Business (ABC) (10pm) — 132,000
Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 98,000

*On News 24 simulcast

Metro FTA: Seven (3 channels) won the night with 31.5% from Nine (3) on 30.8%, Ten (3) on 21.2%, the ABC (4) was on 12.2% and SBS (2) ended on 4.3%. Main Channels: Seven won with 25.0% from Nine on 24.7%, Ten was on 15.3%, ABC 1, 9.4% and SBS ONE, 3.3%.

Metro Digital: GO and ONE tied with 3.9%, from 7mate on 3.8%, 7TWO was on 2.7%, Gem was on 2.3%, Eleven was on 2.0%, ABC 2, 1.6%, SBS ONE, 1.0%, News 24, 0.7% and ABC 3, 0.5%. the 10 digital channels had a total FTA share last night of 22.4%.

Metro including Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won the night with 26.2% from Nine (3) on 25.6%, Ten (3) on 17.6%, Pay TV (200 plus channels) , 14.5%, the ABC (4) was on 10.1% and SBS (2) ended on 3.6%. The 15 FTA channels share last night was 85.5%, the five main channels share was 67.1% and the 10 digital channels share was 18.4%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

Fox Footy (3.54%)
Fox Sports 2 (2.89%)
showtime premiere (2.82%)
TV1 (2.77%)
Fox 8 (2.48%)

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

NRL: Canterbury v Melbourne (Fox Sports 2) — 257,000
AFL: North Melbourne v Adelaide (Fox Footy) — 229,000
Transformers: Dark of The Moon (showtime premiere) — 142,000
AFL: Melbourne v GW Sydney (Fox Footy) — 103,000
AFL: After The Bounce (Fox Footy) — 100,000

Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 33.0%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 32.4%, with SC Ten (3) on 17.2%, the ABC (4) was on 12.8% and SBS (2) was on 4.6%. The main channels were won by Prime/7Qld with 26.0% from WIN/NBN on 23/2%. GO won the digitals with 5.3%, from Gem on 3.7% and 7mate on 3.3%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

The Block — 799,000
Billy Connolly’s Route 66 — 664,000
60 Minutes — 662,000
Seven News — 648,000
Nine News — 639,000

Major Metro Markets: Nine was overall and the main channels in Sydney and won the main channels in Melbourne. Seven won overall in Melbourne and overall and the main channels in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. GO won the digitals battle in Sydney and Brisbane. 7mate won Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

*Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports